What are the symptoms of COPD? Watch out for these 5 symptoms

Chronic cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, frequent wheezing and chest tightness, and frequent coughing up phlegm are all symptoms of COPD. When these symptoms appear, you should undergo relevant examinations as soon as possible.

1. Chronic cough: The first symptom is an intermittent cough, which is more severe in the morning but not significant at night. In a few cases, cough is not accompanied by sputum. There are also some cases with obvious airflow limitation but no cough symptoms.

2. Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing: The hallmark symptom only occurs during exertion in the early stages, and then gradually worsens, so that shortness of breath is felt during daily activities or even during rest.

3. Wheezing and chest tightness: Some patients, especially those with severe conditions, experience wheezing; chest tightness usually occurs after exertion and is related to labored breathing and isovolumetric contraction of the intercostal muscles.

4. Coughing up phlegm: After coughing, people usually cough up a small amount of mucous phlegm, and some patients have more in the early morning. When combined with infection, the amount of phlegm increases, and there is often purulent phlegm.

5. Systemic symptoms: During the clinical course of the disease, especially in more serious patients, systemic symptoms may occur, such as weight loss, loss of appetite, peripheral muscle atrophy and dysfunction, depression and (or) anxiety, etc. When combined with infection, coughing up blood or sputum may occur.

Pulmonary function testing is the gold standard for diagnosing metastatic COPD. It mainly measures the one-second ventilation rate, which is to take a deep breath, then blow out the gas as fast as you feel, and see how much of the gas exhaled in the first second accounts for the total exhaled volume. For patients with COPD, the ventilation rate in one second is less than 70%; the total expiratory volume is less than 80% of normal patients of the same age.